No Evidence of Osteomyelitis!

Seeking the Lord's help from the beginning, we arranged for our home teachers to visit early Sunday morning to assist in giving Jonathan a priesthood blessing. These brethren also organized a ward fast in his behalf. These prayers, combined with those of many family members and friends, have really made a difference. It has been wonderful to feel so much love and support and we have witnessed the healing power of our Heavenly Father.

In less than 48 hrs after his return, Jonathan had a full battery of lab tests and cultures, x-rays and an MRI of his foot. We were able to obtain expert opinions from a radiologist (his former bishop), an emergency physician (our neighbor and his former Priest Quorum adviser), an orthopedic surgeon (his best friend’s dad), and a dermatologist. He has even been seen by his dentist. We are not exaggerating when we say that dozens of additional doctors, including 3 podiatrists (one is his uncle), nurses, technicians and hospital administrators, have given significant input and assistance to expedite his care. We have been amazed by the willingness of all those we have asked for assistance to interrupt their busy schedules during this holiday week and lend their expertise to help Jonathan.

We are very happy to report that the intial lab tests all looked quite good, which rules out a multitude of systemic problems associated with the reported MRSA organism. However, we were all concerned by his x-rays because the bone at the tip of the infected toe was clearly abnormal. This led to a contrast enhance MRI early Monday morning which thankfully showed no evidence of osteomyelitis, an infection of the bone. The overlying chronic infection in the nail and soft tissues of the toe have been inflaming the surface of the bone causing remodeling, or changes to it's shape.

A procedure was performed on Monday afternoon to remove Jonathan's toe nail and more bacterial and fungal cultures were obtained. As we understand it, now that his nail has been removed, they feel that we will be able to erradicate the chronic infection. It is hoped that by the time his first cultures are reported early next week, there will be real improvement in his toe.

Overall, Jonathan looks good. Of course he does have some pain in his toe from the removal of the nail, but it appears to be healing. He no longer has a fever or sore throat and the ulcers in his mouth are nearly gone.  His appetite is returning and we are trying to feed him all of his favorite foods. His energy level is improved and he tells us that he wants to be back in the mission field in time for the next transfer on December 9th. So far, all medical indications are that this is a very reasonable expectation.

Despite being busy with medical examinations, tests, and procedures, Jonathan is still very much a missionary. On Sunday, he spoke about his love of missionary work in both the Priest’s and Deacon’s Quorums in our ward. He had interviews with our bishop and stake president (his acting mission president) and the decision was made to not obtain a medical release at this point. Under the direction of our stake president, he is maintaining his usual daily schedule as closely as possible, arising at 6:30 AM, joining in our family study of Preach My Gospel as well as his daily personal study and journal writing. He continues to wear his white shirt, tie, and nametag. We went to the Logan Temple with him yesterday and he was able to participate in seaings for the first time as well as perform an endowment. He is also doing FamilySearch Indexing. During spare moments he often gravitates toward our music room and we find him playing hymns on the piano. He has really had a wonderful effect upon the spirit in our home!

Again we thank you for your prayers and support.

Shane & Carole Larson

Safe arrival home.

Jonathan arrived safely at the Salt Lake airport this evening at about 8:45 PM, 18 months to the day that we took him to the MTC. He was very tired and fatigued but in good spirits. We fed him and got him home and into bed. We have scheduled medical tests to begin early in the morning and will try to give updates as information becomes available.

We truly appreciate your prayers and your love and support.

Shane & Carole Larson

Coming Home for Medical Treatment.

Dear Family and Friends, 

We so appreciate your prayers for Jonathan and your messages of love and support to us.  

We received word this morning from the church missionary department that, after careful review of the conditions and medical services in the West Indies, they do not feel Jonathan can receive the medical attention he needs there.  As a result, Jonathan is coming home for medical treatment.  He is not being released from his mission.  After the necessary tests and treatments are completed the same individuals who decided that he should come home, Dr Doty and a member of the 12 Apostles, will decide if he can return to missionary service in the West Indies or another mission.  

We are moving forward with the belief that he will be able to complete the full 2 years of his mission call.  We will do everything we can to see that he receives the medical care he needs to become healthy and return to missionary service.  We have already taken steps to ensure that his medical care will begin as soon as he returns home tomorrow. 

Please keep Jonathan and those who will be involved in his care in your prayers. 

Thank you again, 

Carole & Shane

Update from Dad and Mom

Well, as you can all imagine we were quite concerned after receiving Jonathan's email yesterday. We were able to email him back and ask that he let us know what the results of his culture were.

Jonathan sent an email from the church last night while he was there for seminary. The cultures came back positive for MRSA, a staph infection that does not respond to regular antibiotics. We have been quite worried with this new piece of information and the seeming lack of concern and treatment. Now with the added issues of Jonathan's significant weight loss (10% of his total body weight), a week long fever, mouth ulcers, and a sore throat; we feel that more needs to be done for him to prevent potential long term problems.

Today we have been spoken with our Stake President, Mark Jensen, Jonathan's mission president, President Gamiette, and Brother Travis Steward from the missionary department in Salt Lake. Each of these brethern have expessed their understanding of our concerns and desire to ensure Jonathan receives the treatment he needs.

Brother Steward has been in touch with President Gamiette, Sister Ellison, the mission nurse, the Caribbean area missionary doctor, and Dr. Doty, head of all missionary medical care. Dr. Doty has consulted with the Caribbean area mission doctor and the doctor on Trinidad and has some concerns.

Our understanding is that Dr. Doty will be speaking with the member of the twelve who is over missionary service tomorrow to discuss the best way to help Jonathan regain his health.

Please keep Jonathan in your prayers.

I'm just sick.

Sorry I didn't email yesterday, we were still in Guadeloupe at zone conference. We didn't get back until 8:45 last night because we were delayed 2 hours on the return flight. I was nervous because it was terrible weather when we were landing. We had a couple of bad times of turbulence where we were dropped at east a couple hundred feet. Then we landed on just the back left wheels. We're alive though.

Zone conference was okay. It was weird because President Gamiette wasn't there. Apparently his flight got canceled and so he didn't show up until late Monday night. I was able to do alright with it being in French though. I followed almost of the discussion. The real problem was that the conference went way too long, over 6 hours! That's why we didn't get back to St Martin to email yesterday.

Here is a picture from zone conference. Do you recognize my old friend? It's Elder West!


Guadeloupe was kind enough to show us a rainbow between heavy downpours!


The missionaries looked so good walking down the road until we saw their target!


Three of these Elders go home in a couple months and 1 does not. Can you tell which likes the tv more? (Airport delay)


I think that I am going to stay in Marigot for at least 1 more transfer. I don't think that I will be staying on the French side for the rest of the mission. President Gamiette said that he doesn't think he is going to send me to Guadeloupe or to Martinique. So hopefully in a few months I'll be back on Grenada or some other island.

Daphnie is doing good. She actually spoke in Church on Sunday. I don't know why she is waiting to be baptized. It doesn't make any sense to me. Our other investigators aren't moving much faster because we don't have very many of them. Our primary job this transfer and probably next transfer is to work with less-actives.

So you know, I have lost more weight - 16 lbs. I am now down to 140 which is as low as I have been my entire mission (including Guyana) I don't know what's wrong with me. No, I haven't changed what I am eating but I don't feel hungry. My toe went psycho on me again yesterday. It had a bunch of dry dead skin that peeled off. The mission nurse has an appointment today with the doctor I saw in Trinidad. She is going to call me with the results of the culture. I had a temperature of above 101 for four days this week. The fever is sitting about 100 right now and it hurts to move my eyes. I have 6 cold sores that started on Saturday, and they hurt. They are big holes in my mouth. I also have a sore throat that started yesterday. This has by far been my worst week ever. I'm just sick. What should I do? I'm lacking help on this end. We have no senior couple on the island right now, they are at the English speaking Zone Conference on St. Lucia.

The scripture of the week is Mormon 7:5-9.

Things have definitely taken a turn!

I'm good, just a little bummed about the language thing. The French is coming along slowly but surely. I just want to understand everything and to say everything! I'm making good progress but it's not fast enough. My companion and I had to speak in church yesterday (I thought I was going to die)! It went okay but I was seriously stressed. Mostly I read from Elder Andersen's talk called "You Know Enough". It went okay but Elder Snow had to translate some of it for me. It's hard to know the answer to every question we get asked and not be able to respond. The problem comes in when I try to say something back, it doesn't register in my mind yet because I'm still thinking in English! Elder Snow says it took 7 weeks before he could think in French. I can understand about 75% though and I'm studying a lot. It is fun but things have definitely taken a turn in my life. Fun, fun!

We live on the French side of the island, near the marina in a little town with a narrow main street. I forgot to check what our address is. I told the Elders on the Dutch side that you would be sending letters and stuff over there and they don't mind. We see them every Sunday, Monday and Tuesday so I'll be able to get everything from them.

We are getting ready to go to Zone Conference next week on Monday so we won't be e-mailing until Tuesday. It will all be in French! When I interview with the Mission President, I'm going to ask to stay for one more transfer in St. Martin. I would really like to go serve on Martinique but I will probably end up on Guadeloupe if he keeps me French speaking. Either way will be cool. Believe it or not, I just want to go somewhere where the people don't speak English!

We are still working with Daphnie but she wants to wait for her fiancee to come back to the island before she gets baptized. That's not until March so we are desperately trying to change her mind. She even bore her testimony during sacrament meeting last week! I just don't understand why she's waiting! We have a few other people we are teaching that seem like they could get baptized, but they are still a long ways out from that. We have mostly been working on reactivation and we have been making some progress there.

My foot is doing much better. The toenail has not fallen off yet. I am actually still waiting the results of my MRSA test. The doctor should be calling me with the results. My other foot has problems now though. We were in a place called French Quarter on Saturday and I got 11 bites from a group of angry fire-ants. My foot was pretty swollen yesterday but it is getting back to normal now. It reminded me of the fire-ants in Texas.

I'm sorry to hear about Grandma Jensen. I believe that she is a lot happier now than she was here on the Earth. As we say in the West Indies, "for true, mon"!

The scripture of the week is 2 Nephi 25:29. I really like it. (I even looked it up this week so I would remember why I chose it for my scripture of the week list!)

*Note:  We found this picture on the blog Elder Ackerman's family is doing for him It is from Leana's baptism on Tobago.

A sweet investigator named Daphne.

For information on the island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten go to the October 15, 2008 posting.

I took my 27th flight as a missionary to get to Sint Martin on Wednesday! I am close to holding the record for most fights in the mission (not counting the Assistants to the President). It took 4 different flights and a delay in Barbados to get here. It was a long day of travelling.

Elder Ackerman and I did meet our goal and finish reading the Book of Mormon together during 1 transfer (6 weeks). We got done on Tuesday. Our whole zone was suppose to do it but we were the only companionship that made it! I guess the zone leaders cancelled the reading goal but forgot to tell us. And look how we did with baptisms during the transfer! We led the zone with 3!

Things are going great here in Saint Martin. I am really learning French this time. It is coming along slowly but surely. I don't know how long they are going to keep me French speaking but at this point I am planning on speaking it the rest of my mission. Elder Snow has been doing some teaching in French but I haven't been able to say much yet. It is a little bit frustrating to have to sit in a lesson and not be able to say very much. I know enough that I can follow the conversation and know more-or-less what they are talking about. I have an okay sized vocabulary but I have found that it is really hard to speak if you don't know any verbs! The ones I do know all have like 50 different forms because of different tenses and things like that. It's pretty messed up.

Elder Snow is great. He is from Fresno, California. He played volleyball in high school and loves music and other sports. I wouldn't mind being his companion for a while. He is also really patient with me and is a good teacher. We read from the Book of Mormon everyday together and we spend an extra hour studying French each morning before we go out. I was really nervous on Friday when he had me read some verses when we were in a lesson! It went okay though.

Are you ready for a funny story about language goofs? We were reading from 1 Nephi and it says (when Zoram tries to run away) that Nephi is exceedingly young but large in stature, when I read it I said that he was exceedingly yellow!!! Apparently there is only 1 letter difference between the 2 words and it's a vowel.

The branch is pretty small. We met with most of the investigators that came to church last week but some of them were really weird! They scare me! We had a sweet investigator come on Sunday named Daphne (spelled the same way as the Scooby-Doo character). Anyway, she should be getting baptized soon. She is only worried that she isn't ready yet. We'll be going over tomorrow and we've got a few things planned to help her realize that she is ready.

The toe is starting to do a lot better. The cream seems to be taking care of it but the nail looks terrible. I can't believe that it hasn't fallen out yet! I'm sure that it will soon.

Also, the elders on the Dutch side will be going to St.Lucia for zone conference but Elder Snow and I will be going to Guadeloupe on the 16th for ours. I guess it's going to be in French. I think it might be a rough conference for me!

Sorry, but I don't know what my address is yet. You can just send letters to the Dutch side address until I let you know the new one.

The scripture of the week is D&C 133:8-11. I can't remember what it says but it must be good if I chose it for my list of scriptures of the week!